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Matt Ginley reports from the Rainforest

June 16, 2010 -
Matt Ginley

So in an earlier blog post, I wrote about how I typically use the summer time conditions as a test of mental and physical strength as far as climbing goes, and also as an opportunity to get stronger since the adverse conditions force you to try much harder than you usually have to...and I still do feel this way, I swear, but this spring/early summer season has been UNBEARABLY wet and humid!

For the past month, it’s been nothing but rain, rain, and more rain. Yea, this is the south and for sure it rains A LOT, but this is ridiculous!! It’s been full-on rainforest conditions. And if it’s not the rain, the imbalance between humidity, air temperature and dew point has been causing the rock to literally bead up and drip w/ water.

Last month at the New River Rendezvous up in Fayetteville, WV – it actually didn’t rain….that much….but, even at the cliffs where a water droplet can never physically touch the wall, every single inch of rock was completely covered in water. For those that have never seen it, it seems like a true mystery – but simply asking them, “what happens when you put a glass of ice water outside on a very hot day?”, they get it – it SWEATS. That’s exactly what the rock was doing up there and continues to do down here. Truly a bummer….but w/adversity, opportunity usually arises.

Due to these recent nasty conditions, I’ve re-focused my climbing to 100% indoors. Yea, plastic isn’t really THAT much fun but I’ll tell you what – it has been a LONG time since I’ve really spent a lot of time in the gym doing nothing but trying to get strong. Once I started going, it didn’t take long at all to realize how truly weak I was even though I thought I was climbing strong. WRONG!!! Plastic exposes your weaknesses extremely fast and quickly beats your ego into the ground and let’s you know – you are NOT as strong as you thought. But, with some dedication, it also doesn’t take long at all to start seeing huge gains in strength not only physically, but mentally too. KNOWING that you are for sure getting stronger is pure motivation. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed the experience so far and I’m extremely excited to see what will happen once it cools down. It’s gonna be a long time before that happens….so….STAY PSYCHED.